“Gizmos” book helps you make working paper machines

Rob Ives’ “Gizmos” looks like a blast: a $13 book that includes cut-out automata you can make yourself, such as popping frogs and marching robots.

Using the ingenious punch-out designs included in Gizmos, you can assemble six enchanting automata by designer Rob Ives–and when you’ve mastered the fundamental techniques, you can create new designs of your own. Gizmos includes:

• A pre-made pop-up frog ready to jump right out of the box!

• Pre-stamped punch-out parts for two snap-up models that are perfect for first-time builders

• A 144-page book with an introduction to automata and the simple mechanisms–cranks, cams, and levers–that give them life; easy-to-follow instructions to make eight Rob Ives models; and handy reusable templates for each of the model parts, to get you started on future projects

This doesn’t appear to be the only book of this kind out there, Amazon has at least one other called “Automata Too: Four Working Models to Cut Out and Glue Together” by Magdalen Bear. Yeah, you have to use scissors, but otherwise same idea. I’m sure there are others. I grew up in the age of cool cut out and fly paper airplane books being all the rage (early ’80’s) and had a lot of fun with ‘em.